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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Offending Religious Folk

With the controversies of late regarding the burning of Qurans, and the subsequent riots it is probably a good time to weigh in on the issue.

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about this, because in my opinion is it much ado about nothing, until people get hurt that is. In this recent case of Terry Jones and his Quran burning, the response was violent, and 12 people died.
I support the rights of imbeciles like Terry Jones to say whatever they want, and even to burn holy books if they so desire. I support the rights of Muslims to be offended by the actions and words of such imbeciles. In fact, the Muslim world could have used his actions as an opportunity to stand up and show the world that they are bigger men, figuratively speaking, and that Terry Jones is just a childish buffoon. That's not what happened though was it?

Instead of standing up like civilised people, a large crowd of Muslims in Afghanistan were riled up by some radical Mullahs, and stormed the United Nations building, killing 12 workers. This is not something that should be happening in the 21st century! This behaviour belongs back in the dark ages along with book burning.

I'm not about to go on a misguided rant about the evils of religion, because that's only a side issue here. Islam is not the problem in this scenario, ignorance and manipulation are. It seems obvious to me that the people at fault here are the Mullahs, who much like Hitler have the ability to incite people to violence. The crowd are equally guilty, for being susceptible to manipulation. An educated person, with critical thinking skills would not be susceptible to this kind of group-think or manipulation.

Just because I think he's an idiot for doing it, and that it belongs in the dark ages doesn't mean I don't think he should be allowed to do it. He could burn a copy of Newton's Principia, or Darwin's Origin if he wanted and I'd still support his right to do so. I'll keep calling him a moron though.